Posted by Lorenzo van Sichem
on November 27, 2024
You may already know that our Sky Blue felt is made from old KLM outfits, but did you also know that this was our very first felt color? In this blog post, we'll tell you more about the origins of this beautiful color.
History
About 10 years ago, KLM had its old workwear fiberized when they transitioned to new workwear. This left us with approximately 60 tons of KLM fiber storage. We saw an opportunity! When we launched our felt in 2015, we took some of these fibers with us, and this ultimately became our beautiful Sky Blue felt! Sky Blue has been part of our collection for years.
Our first assignment
Like many other companies, we had to move very quickly for our first assignment—really quickly! We had the KLM fibers, but we didn't have the felt yet. When we received a great assignment for H&M Berlin, we jumped at it!
1,000 Sky Blue handbags (with print) had to be in Berlin by Wednesday morning. We started on Monday, and the felt still needed to be made. Our entire studio was turned upside down, but the collaboration was fantastic and showed how strong we are when we all work together for a common goal! On Monday, the felt rolls were made from the fibers. Michiel's car (director of i-did) was full of felt rolls, and he drove them to the studio, where they were ready for cutting and stitching.
On Tuesday, Michiel and Mireille (founder and director) went to another workspace together to punch out the handles of the bags, which had been sewn the day before. It was all hands on deck all day. Afterward, they had to return to our studio for the finishing touches. Once the bags were finished and printed, a family member drove to Berlin that evening with the 1,000 handbags to deliver them as agreed before 9:00 AM on Wednesday morning.
The final result of the H&M Berlin assignment
Huge time pressure, but fantastic collaboration. We've learned a tremendous amount from this, and these days we can even handle orders of 30,000 units thanks to our fantastic team – and sometimes we're still all in the workshop, adapting quickly! ;-)
